Electronic devices typically include various types of electrical components such as receptacle-type connector assemblies which are installed during the manufacturing of the electronic device. Some of these receptacle-type connectors are sometimes referred to as a header having a plurality of electrical contacts or pins within. The header is configured to correspond with and retain a female socket which is, in turn, configured to receive the header's plurality of contact pins. Typically, connector pins are soldered to the printed wiring board (PWB) as shown in FIG. 1 using a wave solder process where the PWB and any headers to be attached are passed through a bath of solder. Once the header is soldered to the PWB and the corresponding socket is to be connected, the cable such as a ribbon cable must extend from the side of the PWB having the header to the opposite side of the PWB which is undesirable.
Some other types of connectors, commonly referred to as surface mount connectors because they sit on only one side of the PWB, without contacts extending to the opposite side of the PWB as shown in FIG. 2, allow the ribbon cable to extend from only one side of the PWB. This configuration has been more desirable because the ribbon cable is not wrapped around the PWB from one side to the other. However, these known surface mount connectors are too tall to pass through the wave solder machine when being mounted to a single-sided PWB because of the addition height created by having the contacts extend between the PWB and the header.
Therefore, what is needed is a means to mount surface mount connectors to single-sided PWBs in a low-profile manner such that the PWB and the surface mount connectors to be mounted may pass through the solder wave machine without being obstructed. Moreover, the ribbon cable should preferably extend from only one side of the PWB.